Mass Violence and the Kurds: From the Late Ottoman Empire to ISIS

Research output: Chapter in book/volumeChapterScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Kurds are a diverse ethnic group who number 30 to 40 million, and speak languages of the Indo-European family. A majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but minorities follow Shi’ism, Alevism, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity. They are culturally distinct from Arabs, Turks, Persians, Syriacs and Armenians, their historical neighbours. The Kurds’ experience with modern mass violence, from civil wars to genocides, is long and complex. Whereas Kurds lived for centuries in pre-national conditions in the Ottoman and Persian empires, the advent of nationalism and the nation-state system in the Middle East in the twentieth century radically changed their situation.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Cambridge World History of Genocide
EditorsBen Kiernan, Wendy Lower, Norman Naimark, Scott Straus
Place of PublicationCambridge; New York
PublisherCambridge University Press
Pages574-598
Volume3
ISBN (Electronic) 9781108767118
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

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